Aciphylla
Aciphylla are perhaps the meanest of the New Zealand plants but for me they are some of the most interesting and unique of our flora. From the very low growing cushions of Aciphylla leighii and dobsonii to the massive clumps of Aciphylla horrida and lomondii there is enormous variety in this large genus (around 40 spp.) Their distribution is cantered on New Zealand with 2 or 3 species in Australia. They all have sharp leaves but the smaller species are a lot easier to deal with. Important identification features are the habit and size of the plant, the stipules on the leaves, flower shape and where the plants grow. Complications are the occasional hybrid that naturally occurs and the fact that flowering does not occur every year.
Cultivation is not too difficult and once you get past the idea of sharing your garden with these monsters of the vegetable world, the rewards make it all worth while. The bigger species have a lovely symmetry and make very good specimen plants and when they flower they are even more striking. The colours of the leaves make them worthy of a place in any ones garden. The gold of A. aurea or the blue grey of A. glaucescens, lomondii and scott-thomsonii are amazing. The smaller specimens make good potted specimens especially the cushions, a trough would also be ideal. For the larger specimens I recommend planting them with a ground cover that will suppress the weeds around them as once they start to get bigger you wont be wanting to weed too close to them. If you grow them with a low growing plant that has a contrasting colour to the spear grass's leaves the plants will stand out well. A blue or grey coloured Acaena with the gold or green leaved species for example.
Cultivation is usually from seed which should be sown fresh and should ideally receive a cold treatment. Leaving the seed raising tray out on a few frosty nights is the best way but the seeds will still germinate without frost, they just may take a year longer that if at all. I recommend that you keep the seed trays for 3 years as the seed will keep germinating over that length of time. Apparently gibberallic acid breaks dormancy also. The main problems to worry about are fungal attacks and aphids at flowering time. Free draining mixes are important as with most alpines but the use of a symbiotic fungi in the mix such as trichoderma could help a lot with preventing pathogenic fungal attack. I have just recently started using this and so far it reduced the mortality of seedlings pricked out to zero compared with about 30% for untreated seedlings weather it will help with older plants or if it always works with seedlings is a matter for more testing but so far I am very pleased with it.
